I ordered mine from Nick Ballerini in Dallas on Ebay as he had them in stock. Received it in 3 days via Fed Ex free shipping. Great deal an a great accordion. It is lighter than a conventional triple as you would expect but still feels and plays like a conventional accordion. Stepped keyboard, like David Sousa said is no problem In fact, it plays faster than conventional triples. Lots of switches and sounds to master and for someone like me who is digitally challenged,it is a bit daunting. But I am learning. Of course you need to have a good keyboard amp or sound system to play it through. You can play silently through earphones but you, of course, don't get a real fat sound. However it is nice to be able to play anytime and not disturb anyone. Through an amp or through the PA you can make it sound anyway you want. Do you like Keith Frank's 9 switch Baffettis in GCF and FBE. No problem. Do you want it drier or wetter, no problem. Like Boo Zoo's sound on Motor Dude, no problem. Does Beau Jocque's trade mark sound still make you wobble in the knees? you can dial that in too and change it to any key if you want. And that Hammond B-3 with Leslie is something else. You can even combine the organ and accordion to get a hybrid accordion sound that is quite something too. If there is a down side i guess it would be that if you are playing a gig and it is dark, you might hit a wrong switch or be unable to see the small numbers for the different keys but I think that is only a problem for us old guys who need reading glasses to see close and are still learning to cope in the digital world. However, if I can play it pretty much right out of the box than anyone can master all of its potential. It just will take some time. I can only imagine what this would sound like in the hands of Chris, Keith, Cory, Andre,Chubby, J. Paul,Jamie, Damon, Li'l Wayne, Dikki Du, etc. etc. etc. Like David said, no feedback. No guitar can ever drown out the accordion sound. Never again will anyone ever be able to say "I can't hear the accordion". When they do just twist that dial and send that sound all the way to outer space. ya mon!!. I'm not selling my triples yet as there is something to be said about the sound of real reeds. However, for gigging when you are playing through a sound system and especially if you have your triple miced internally, than the Roland will give you all you need and then some. If you are going for the externally miced sound like Steve Riley or some of the Zydecajun players who use triples in their shows than you can get that clean sound too. I have been able to get pretty close to a single row sound. I think it can be done with some more fine tuning and working with the controls. It won't replace a cajun accordion but it can come close so that for practice and travelling, you could use only this box. Highly recommended. No bellows pad either. I'm gonna have one put on when I get around to it.

Thanks to David & Johnny for their reviews. It is an intriguing instrument. The fact that you could practice silently is one major reason I would consider one.
I suppose there is less maintainenince on this box b/c of its lack of reeds. What about the rest? Do you foresee any issues with getting any parts electronic or otherwise fixed?
Dave

Great review....

I also found this on Y/tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VW47rMwNnA&feature=related

I guess I still anxiously wait to see and hear this FR8 play like Dwayne Dopsie or , God Rest His Soul, Roy Carrier,s , and Chubby's 3 rows...that gutsy GROWL and Zydeco sound.
Personally, I'm not interested unless it can Zydeco and Cajun reasonably authentically..the Tex Mex and European Folk tones demonstrated one after the other do nothing for me...in fact I find them generally a mind sapping turn off.

Can anyone arrange to get any of the LA or TX Zydeco pro players to run it up on Youtube or where-ever..that would be worth Roland paying for it to be done...or perhaps Baffetti and similar don't want their ' players' going near the Rolands ...perhaps too many other non- Roland contract deals going on behind the scenes?

The many FX modes are nice but I suspect would hardly ever be used.

The FR8 has many appealing other features, including price, for me....I would still buy one knowing that many or most features wouldn't be used...as long as it growled enough!!

Zydeco and Cajun demos please..anyone?

This is poor quality video but starts to get along the road where you can sense the FR18 sound in a band structure with a bluesy rock beat...interesting...I'm getting MORE interested in the Roland by the minute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITbvEhOUJQk&feature=related

Gonna gig it this Sat night at Paul's Bar & Bowling in Paterson NJ. Hope to get some flip video of it and post it.

yeah, that's the only YouTube video that I thought began to show what it could do for "us".

I'm interested too, though I don't play across rows much yet. I'm very tired of trying to screech out tunes on a C box. And don't want to buy and haul a plethora of different keys. And want to switch to keys that match my voice to the range of the melody.

don't know if anyone is looking, but here's a discounted used unit (link 1)... no affil, etc...

So since there are no reeds to blow air over, is the purpose of the bellows just to give you the different notes on the push and the pull?

Even though there are no reeds, the bellows works in the usual way: If you push you get one note, and if you pull you get another note. Also, the dynamics are the same as an acoustic accordion. If you pull/push faster, or slower, or harder or softer, it responds in the expected way.

I used it for the first time at band practice last night. Played it through a powered mixer. Lots of volume when needed. I find it faster than a conventional triple. Since there are no reeds it is somewhat lighter. But the lightness is most noticeable to me on the bass side. Where a conventional triple would have 5 sets of bass reeds in a wooden housing, it has weight and inertia so after 3 hours it can get tiring. Not so on the Roland. No real weight or inertia there and you can regulate the bellows tension. The problem I am having is one of discipline. Because there are so many potential sounds I found my self constantly switching the switches. As a result I was inadvertently using the octave function and switching the whole keyboard up an octave. (yea it can do that) As a result I lost my big fat sound and was getting a high pitched thin sound and I couldn't figure it out. I had to turn it off and start all over. Rereading the instructions this morning helped. If I was playing a conventional I would just use the master switch. So I think with the Roland I will approach it the same way and pick out the sound that is closest to the one I am used to with my 5 switch Guerrini and rely on the Roland's better playablity to bring my playing up a few notches. Once I get a few gigs with it under my belt and have more confidence, I'll start varying the sound. Chorus and Reverb are interesting. I have to say though that I am getting addicted to the Organ sound with the Leslie. You can even combine that with an accordion sound which is also pretty cool. Like I said, I am planning to play it at a gig Sat night. I hope to get some video to post.

Which organ sound do you like the best (register 1,2,3 or 4? Fast or slow (red or green light))?

This sure looks to be huge bang-for-the-buck. A new Corona II is close to $1,800 from the online retailers.

I'm still trying to figure out these switches. I think the organ sound that I like is third switch red. that is the biggest fattest with the fast Leslie.

"Do you like Keith Frank's 9 switch Baffettis in GCF and FBE. No problem. Do you want it drier or wetter, no problem. Like Boo Zoo's sound on Motor Dude, no problem. Does Beau Jocque's trade mark sound still make you wobble in the knees? you can dial that in too and change it to any key if you want. "
===

yes but..

how do you do that exactly?

i;m sure there is no boozoo button

does it even have a sound that starts out like a regular single row LA accordion, to modify?

how do you tell it 'internal miked zydeco sound'?

or 'i want to cut the bass reed off'

can you change just one note to a different one?

how does it handle the difference between triple row and single row at the bass end?



i'd like to like this thing
but i am annoyed there is no digital accordion that can switch from 5 row chromatic to 3 [or 5] row diatonic..


wle

There's no Boozoo button as far as I can tell.

It does not have an internal mic'ed zydeco sound, but somebody could create one and load it into the accordion. They don't go into the details in any depth, but I assume that you would use a sampler and create a multi-sample, like you would on a sampling keyboard.

The way you cut the bass reed off is more or less the same as on a normal triple row. There are 5 register switches on the front, and each has two settings. So, that is 8 different sounds, and the differences have to do with which reeds are turned on or off. In addition to that, there are 12 "accordion sets", which are the fundamental sampled sounds of real accordions that the thing is based on. So, you select an accordion set first, and then select one of the 8 sounds within that set. There is also a setting where you can change the amount of mussette by 15 steps. They don't say how each of the steps relates to a number of cents, unfortunately.

You can also change the keyboard layout to be anything you want, including changing just a single button. The way you do that is that you download an app onto your PC or Mac, change the note assignments, load the result into a thumb drive, attach the thumb drive to the accordion and off you go. You can change the bass side this way too.

I have not tried it yet, but I see no reason why you couldn't set this thing up to be a three row diatonic. For that matter, you could set it up with both C system and B system.

It does not have an internal mic'ed zydeco sound, but somebody could create one and load it into the accordion. They don't go into the details in any depth, but I assume that you would use a sampler and create a multi-sample, like you would on a sampling keyboard.

==really.. you couldn;t do that with the
original chromatics



The way you cut the bass reed off is more or less the same as on a normal triple row. There are 5 register switches on the front, and each has two settings. So, that is 8 different sounds, and the differences have to do with which reeds are turned on or off. In addition to that, there are 12 "accordion sets", which are the fundamental sampled sounds of real accordions that the thing is based on. So, you select an accordion set first, and then select one of the 8 sounds within that set. There is also a setting where you can change the amount of mussette by 15 steps. They don't say how each of the steps relates to a number of cents, unfortunately.

==is there a setting that at least
sounds like a regular cajun accordion?


You can also change the keyboard layout to be anything you want, including changing just a single button. The way you do that is that you download an app onto your PC or Mac, change the note assignments, load the result into a thumb drive, attach the thumb drive to the accordion and off you go. You can change the bass side this way too.

==ok
i have read that so i believe it
even though you couldn;t do that
on the original chromatics either

[[if you could have, you could have
made it into a diatonic - though
roland claims the pressure sensor
in the chromatics does not
distinguish 'in' from 'out'
which i find hard to believe
maybe its firmware doesn;t but a
pressure sensor should go + and - ]]



I have not tried it yet, but I see no reason why you couldn't set this thing up to be a three row diatonic.


==you mean chromatic


For that matter, you could set it up with both C system and B system.

==yes but the more common chromatic is 5 row, as you know :)

==wle